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ESPR 2025 Annual Conference
March 14-16, 2025

Join us in-person at the Mariott Philadelphia Downtown, Philadelphia, PA

The 2025 annual conference promises to be educational, exciting and inspirational! It's our first time together in a few years and THE place to be in March for everything related to pediatric research.

By attending this year's meeting, you'll discover:

  • Early career investigators present their research in a supportive, structured yet relaxed learning environment;
  • Regional clinicians will be exposed to cutting-edge clinical and basic science from emerging talent-
  • Physician-scientists joining in educational programs on important topics in pediatric research, and
  • Trainees and experienced physician-scientists networking in an informal and friendly setting.

Plenary speakers include:

Dr. Catherine Bollard

Dr. Bollard received her medical degree at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She is board certified both in pediatrics and hematology. In August 2013, she was recruited from Baylor College of Medicine to Washington, DC, to develop a novel cell therapies program at Children’s National Hospital and George Washington University. She is currently the Bosworth Chair for Cancer Biology, Director of the Center for Cancer and Immunology Research at Children’s National Hospital. She is a Professor of Pediatrics and the Associate Center Director for Translational Research and Innovation at the GW Cancer Center. Dr. Bollard is a past president of the International Society for Cellular Therapy, and the current President of the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy. She previously served on the Cellular, Tissues, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee of the FDA. She is currently Editor in Chief of Blood Advances. She has >250 peer reviewed publications and has been independently NIH funded for over 15 years. Her bench and translational research focuses on the development of novel cell therapies for cancer and virus-associated diseases.

Dr. Kristyn Beam

Dr. Kristyn Beam is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a Neonatologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center with an interest in how artificial intelligence methods can be used on large data sets to improve neonatal outcomes. She is a co-founder of the group NeoMIND-AI, which is a group of neonatologists across the country interested in using AI and expanding the understanding of AI’s uses in neonatology. Her research interests include using AI and large language models for neonatal diagnoses and medical education.

 

Mark R. Mercurio, M.D., M.A.

Mark Mercurio is Professor of Pediatrics, Founding Director of the Program for Biomedical Ethics at Yale School of Medicine, and Founding Director of the Yale Pediatric Ethics Program at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital. He received his undergraduate degree in Biochemical Sciences from Princeton University, an M.D. from Columbia University, and completed Pediatrics Residency and Neonatology Fellowship at Yale. In 2023, he received the William G. Bartholome Award for Ethical Excellence from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

 

Veronica Weser, PhD

Veronica Weser earned her PhD leveraging virtual reality (VR) technology to understand human perception. Dr. Weser is now the Associate Director of XR Pediatrics, a lab within the Yale Center for Immersive Technology in Pediatrics, and devotes her time to the development and evaluation of theory and evidence-informed VR applications designed to improve the lives of youth and young adults.